Red Bank Green

Serving Red Bank and Greater Red Bank, NJ

Whether or not Jon Stewart, seen above at a Basie event in 2012, shows up Thursday, his collaborators, and satirical spirit, will be in Red Bank. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

Though he’s cultivated a grey beard since backing away from his desk at The Daily Show 16 months ago, Jon Stewart hasn’t exactly adopted a hermit-like existence.

He’s made memorable appearances on the programs of former colleagues Stephen Colbert and Larry Wilmore. He’s been busy with his wife, Tracey, in establishing a new home for rescued farm animals. A new book titled “The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests,” hasrekindled interest in his legacy. Oh, and he signed a four-year contract with HBO that had media observers salivating over the possibilities.

While Stewart’s still-untitled HBO project is said to be readying for debut by March, a live audience on the Greater Red Bank Green is slated to get an advance taste Thursday night, when the Count Basie Theatre mounts a special Evening of Comedy spotlighting its writers and performers.

Journalist Leslie Bennetts (below) visits River Road Books Wednesday evening for a “can we talk?” session on the career of the late Joan Rivers (above).

Before her sudden passing in 2014 at the age of 81, Joan Rivers seemed to have lived several lives in the public eye. From her training in the hepster coffee houses of Greenwich Village and the challenges of being a “comedienne” in the Sullivan-era standup scene to a spate of late-career activity that included a hit cable TV show — and a tour stop at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre — Rivers acquired new generations of fans as readily as she made enemies in and out of the business.

The Wizards of Winter keep the Yuletide vibe going after dusk with a Saturday night set at the Count Basie Theatre. (Click to enlarge)

It wasn’t all that long ago that the shopping-mall sound systems and merciless muzak machines of the holiday season received a heavy dose of prog-rock bombast that shook the snow from the shingles when an organization that called itself the Trans-Siberian Orchestra released its first Christmas-themed rock opera.

When four touring crewmembers of TSO (including vocalists Guy LeMonnier and Joe Cerisano) opted to pursue their own career track in the early years of this decade, they did so under the acronym of WOW, or Wizards of Winter.

The official tree has yet to find its base in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park, and the horse-drawn carriages and surrogate Santas have yet to be sighted on the downtown streets.

But the elves at the Count Basie Theatre, the Greater Red Bank Green’s unofficial Capital of Christmas, already have their workshop in overdrive on a packed slate of Christmastime confections that runs right up to the doorstep of the New Year.

Chrissie Hynde, seen here with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys in a screen grab from the video for ‘Holy Commotion,” returns to Red Bank with her 2016 edition of the Pretenders for a Thursday night concert.

Last time Chrissie Hynde trod the boards of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre, two years ago, the face, voice, heart and soul of the Pretenders offered up a showcase of her debut long-player Stockholm, chased by a lip-to-label spin through the mega-classic 1979 Pretenders LP, its fab 45s and deep-cut classics “Brass in Pocket,” “Kid,” “Stop Your Sobbing,” “Mystery Achievement” and “Precious”).

Bolstered by the accrued good-will generated by the album and road itinerary, the Hall of Fame rocker entered a Nashville studio earlier this year with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach for some sessions intended to yield her sophomore solo release. But something surprising must have happened inside that soundproofed space, as “those driving guitars, ragged-but-righteous arrangements, tough-yet tender lyrics delivered by the most beautifully distinctive voice of a generation” (according to the press notes) suggested nothing less than that the Pretenders were back.

The Steve Miller Band takes the Basie boards Tuesday. (Click to enlarge.)

Though he’s not generally associated with the flowering music scene of late-1960s San Francisco, rocker Steve Miller was very much in it as far back as 1966, when he supported Chuck Berry on a live album recorded at the Fillmore Auditorium. It was one stop in a career that’s also been steeped in the blues scenes of Dallas and Chicago enroute to some chartbusting pop success.

Listen for hints of all that when Miller, still rocking at 73, brings his band to Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre Tuesday night for its only Garden State appearance of his current tour.

Multi-instrumentalist Marc Muller, at right above, leads Dead On Live at the Count Basie Saturday night. Steve Miller, below, takes the stage Tuesday. (Photo by Brian Stratton. Click to enlarge.)

The sonic legacy of the San Francisco Bay area casts its still-potent spell over the famous stage of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre Friday night, sound-tracked by as dead-on a recreation of the Grateful Dead as you’ll find anywhere between Raceway Park and the Pyramids.

Tracy Morgan brings his standup act to the Count Basie stage for two shows Friday night.

“I’ve tapped into something, man, that nobody else can talk about,” Tracy Morgan said in an interview with a national wire service earlier this year. “I went to the other side and came back bearing gifts… and I’m gonna share all those gifts with my fans.”

In case you missed the headline-making news, the Emmy nominated cast member of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock was referencing his near-death experience in a June, 2014, limo crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, an accident that killed his friend James “Jimmy Mack” McNair, and left Morgan comatose with multiple injuries, necessitating a lengthy process of physical therapy and speech rehabilitation.

Undaunted, the Bronx-born “cringe comic” (and co-star of films like Cop Out and the forthcoming Fist Fight) has taken to the road once more on a route that leads to Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre Friday night.

In a week when Yes was nominated (for the third time) for a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Red Bank area fans can get a major reminder of what made that prog-rock institution so special when three of its celebrated veterans take the stage of the Count Basie Theatre Wednesday night.

“It’s all gone,” said Peter Frampton during a TV appearance several years ago, indicating the nearly hairless head where once resided one of the most luxurious manes in all of classic rockdom. “And it’s not coming back.”

Fortunately, the platinum-plated guitarist/ singer/ songwriter hasn’t shed his easy rapport with a live audience, and when he comes to the stage of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre Tuesday night, he’ll be serving up selections from his long career raw, as part of an all-acoustic tour.

A promo video for the Haunted Theater, which once again invades the Brookdale campus for three weekends beginning this Friday.

We’ve said it before, but while it sometimes seems that the shambling zombies and vamping bloodsuckers of a walk-thru haunted house can’t hold a candle to the horrors of the real world, we do take a strange comfort from the annual appearance of those hooded goblins and snooded ghouls.

So it is here on the Greater Red Bank Green, where Brookdale Haunted Theater creaks open its doors this weekend on what’s become one of the more bizarre local rituals of the calendar year.

Joe Ruffini in the salon of the Naval War College, where a photo of onetime visitor John F. Kennedy hangs. The”admiral’s barge,” below, will be among the wooden boats on display at the Monmouth Boat Club Saturday. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

A year later, Joe Ruffini is still in the “pinch me” phase, not quite able to believe his good luck.

After a brief online bidding war, the Red Bank roofer ended up owning a well-maintained, 50-foot wooden yacht, built for Navy admirals, that has hosted at least two American presidents.

On Saturday, the public will get a chance to step aboard, when Ruffini’s prize goes on display as part of a wooden and classic boat show in Red Bank.

The US Army Field Band’s “Jazz Ambassadors” unit deploys to the stage of the Count Basie Theatre for a free concert next Wednesday.

In its assembled glory, it’s a formidable force — and its many crack commando units and surgical-strike teams allow it to perform missions that range from a Dixieland septet and harp-flute duo to a Son Tropical big band.

When the uniformed members of the Jazz Ambassadors of the US Army Field Band take the Basie stage next Wednesday, they’ll be carrying on a tradition that’s seen various iterations of the USAFB treat the Red Bank audience to a free display by the most formidable musical force in the free world.

Pianist Stewart Goodyear helps usher in a new season of New Jersey Symphony concerts at the Count Basie Saturday evening.

Continuing a decades-long and beautiful relationship with the Count Basie Theatre, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra returns to Red Bank Saturday night for the first in a new season of concerts — and to sound the keynote in the company of a performer who’s been branded a “phenomenon” by music critics and fans alike.

Bon Jovi’s new touring guitarist Matt O’Ree, above, plays a special ticketed-event tribute to Eric Clapton at Jamian’s this Saturday, even as JBJ and the boys perform a preview of their new album, just up Monmouth Street at Basie’s place. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

For fans of the homegrown institution that is Bon Jovi, the first night of October brings an event that seems gifted from the gods of classic rock: an exclusive preview concert, going on at Red Bank’s own Count Basie Theatre, an “intimate” affair in which JBJ and his core bandmates (David Bryan, Tico Torres, Hugh McDonald) perform the entirety of their new album This House Is Not For Sale — their 14th studio opus, and a release that’s slated to drop on October 21.

Blue skies and early-fall temperatures drew thousands of hungry music lovers to downtown Red Bank for the seventh annual Guinness Oyster Festival Sunday. And once again, redbankgreen prowled the midway to document the merriment.

Check out the dozens of photos below to see if you or someone you know was caught slurping, sipping or dancing like nobody’ looking. (Photos by Trish Russoniello and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

The kids are in the driver’s seat once more this Saturday at the annual Touch-a-Truck fundraiser in Red Bank, while Middletown Day offers an opportunity to get hands-on with a NorthSTAR emergency helicopter (below).

“Every kid stops and watches when a police car or fire engine races by,” says Monmouth Day Care Center exec director Heidi Zaentz — and this Saturday, they’ll have an opportunity to get up-close and hands-on with various trucks, tractors, and emergency vehicles — even an emergency Medevac helicopter at a couple of big yearly events that have become major fundraising vehicles in their own right.

Two popular Red Bank-area bands — the Wag, seen above, and Woodfish — take the open-air stage at Riverside Gardens Park Saturday evening for the “Concert for the Kids,” in support of the Red Bank Parks and Recreation youth sports programs.

There’s no charge for the 5:30 p.m. event, but a donation of $10 is suggested to help ensure that any child who wants to play sports or attend a camp is able to do so, said department director Charlie Hoffman. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

The Ribeye Brothers are the red meat on the grill as a Labor Day Weekend tradition gets fired up once more at the Dublin House. (Photo by Danny Sanchez)

It should be said up front that the Ribeye Brothers specialize in tales of rejection, recidivism and raw ruin. Their CDs are sales-pitched as “the latest self-deprecating offering from the band who hates themselves more than you do,” and carry titles like “Swagger Turns to Stagger,” “Come In Last,” “Far Side of a Bad Thing” and “Disappointment Punch.” Even their well-curated covers by ’60s signifiers like the 13th Floor Elevators and Syd Barrett’s original the Pink Floyd skew along the lines of “boy loses girl, gets bitter as all Angostura.”

But a Ribeyes summertime show is a guaranteed and garage-tested good time, even if it’s also, as redbankgreen has said before, “the most raucously pounding pity party (with free admission, yet) you’ll ever encounter on the fringes of a public parking lot.” And when the Red Bank-based quintet makes a long-overdue return to the Dublin House Pub) this Sunday, it will represent both the rekindling of a hallowed holiday-weekend tradition and a reacquainting that’s packed with new tunes and some potentially pleasant surprises.

Art collector and auto dealer Ken Schwartz opened his new Detour Gallery in an 8,000-square-foot former warehouse on Clay Street in Red Bank Thursday night.

The opening exhibit, titled ‘Culturedrone,’ features dozens of contemporary paintings displayed over the gallery’s two floors. The space, featuring the original 50-foot-wide exposed roof trusses, was designed by borough-based architect Stephen Raciti.

In addition to helping make downtown Red Bank a Milk Dud mecca for first-run independent/”arthouse” feature films, White Street’s Bow Tie Cinemas (and its predecessor, Clearview Cinemas) has done duty as official host venue for an attraction all our own: a series of sneak-preview screening events, spotlighting festival-favorite indies before they go into general release.

Part of a long-running partnership between the borough-based Monmouth County Arts Council and Sony Pictures Classics (the major distributor whose president, Tom Bernard, makes his home in Middletown), the sneak-peek series has offered Red Bank-area audiences a first look at works from veteran auteurs (Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola) and first-timers alike.

This Thursday, it’s “roll ’em” once more, with a 7:30 p.m. showing of “The Hollars,” a comedy-drama directed by (and starring) a familiar face from the workplace.

The 2015 Disney/Pixar hit “Inside Out” screens Saturday morning at the Count Basie Theatre, part of a free Summer Film Series that resumes on August 10 with the Mel Brooks monster-mash “Young Frankenstein.”

The doldrums of summer are prime time for free outdoor movie series like the long-running Tuesday attractions at Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park and Sea Bright’s Movies on the Beach. Still, there’s no time like the sweltering present to enjoy the cooling comforts of climate control, and no better place to enjoy a classic moviegoing experience than at Monmouth County’s longest-running picture show, the historic Count Basie Theatre.

Ninety years after its 1926 debut as a venue for the latest in silent films, the former Carlton Theater keeps the big screen a-flicker in the weeks ahead with a special four-part Summer Film Series that’s free of charge.

12.09 - Winter Festival with Live Nativity at All Saints Church All Saints Episcopal (the historic Old Stone Church in Navesink) announces their 1st annual ' rain or shine' Winter Festival, with Live Nativity presented in the church's historic carriage sheds. Also featured will be hot cocoa or cider, face painting for the kids, gift vendors (fresh wreaths, homemade baked goods and candy, hand knitted items and more). Free admission; bring a nonperishable food items for local food pantry.

12.13 - Red Bank Board of Education Work Session Open agenda preparation work session meetings, held on the second Tuesday of the month at the Middle School Media Center. Executive Session begins at 7 pm, and the Public Session begins at 7:30 pm. Time: 7:30 pm